USE OF MULTIMEDIA AND INTERNET TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPING ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION AND RECREATION

A.A.Medvedev1, N.A.Alekseenko2

1 - Institute of Geography, Laboratory  "Cartography ", Moscow, Russia

2 - Geographical Faculty of the Moscow M.V.Lomonosov State University , Faculty of Cartography and Geoinformatics, Moscow, Russia

bear83@yandex.ru

 

High level and good quality of ecological formation is necessary for achievement of Russia sustainable development. Till now brochures, booklets, photos and other similar data carriers have been the most routine visual means of ecological education in majority of ÎÎPT in Russia. However, the maintenance and quality of the majority of them do not quite correspond to the modern opportunities, capable to raise essentially efficiency of ecological education programs, intended for various groups of citizens (visitors of parks, local residents, regional managers). It is expediently for each of these categories to present the information, firstly, at an accessible level, secondly, directed to problems.

For today one of real ways to raise ecological literacy of the population is education by means of multimedia production engineering, both by means of CDs dissemination, and through the Internet. Various maps of the ecological content serve as the major component of such production engineering. However, many of those on whom ecological-educational projects are directed, as a rule, have no sufficient cartographic background. Therefore in multimedia projects it is necessary to pay special attention to rise of users cartographical culture level.

Interactive designs can not only promote visualization of the space information and be used for representation of territory evolution various alternatives as tools of planning for experts and the tool of presentation for general public, but can also initiate educational processes in which the estimation of a problem state matches to a level of fathoming of a layman. 

Last two years on the basis of the field data collected during conducting practical training and scientific works at ÎÎPT the following have been created: Multimedia projects "Along Small River Zhizdra", "Vorobyov’s Gory" and the Internet - project «Ugra». Projects are oriented on various categories of OOPT visitors: "Along Small River Zhizdra" for tourists, "Vorobyov’s Gory" separately for younger pupils and employees of the reserve, the Internet-project «Ugra» is a multilevel project where access to the desirable information can be individualized and accommodated for interests and abilities of users.

Maps of various scale levels and various subjects are included in each project with the expanded graphic representations (photos, figures and the text).  Some sections are added by animation inserts or a soundtrack.

Works on creation of interactive section of the Internet-project «Ugra» (http://www.ecocommunity.ru/ugra/Planir.html) are very interesting. It represents demonstration of ecologically oriented specialists education system. In this section stage of works on creation of ecological maps (from field up to office ones) are shown all. The block contains not only already made maps, but also maps-sources, the space pictures, field itineraries data, all this information is tied geographically up. In the section there is the greater text part revealing a technique of works very in detail. The technique is based on the concrete instances gained during conducting field practice training of students at Faculty of Cartography and Geoinformatics.

The section contains also maps-schemes, in which users can make modifications: Configurations of a track, arrangement of the informational boards, stops for the guide’s lecture, disposing of new installations.